This invention relates to pluggable high-amperage contacts in general, and more particularly to an improved contact of this nature which facilitates the mating of a cylindrical plug in a funnel shaped connector receptacle.
Pluggable high-amperage contacts are used in many areas in power engineering. Typically, the plug and the connector receptacle are mounted on different pieces of equipment. As an example, the connector receptacle may be attached to a rectifier or transformer and the plug to a movable frame. Due to the attachment at different pieces of equipment and the large dimensions found in power installations, position tolerances occur between the plug and the connector receptacle. To solve these tolerance problems, commercially available pluggable contacts have been used, in which the connector receptacle is designed to have resilient contact elements. In these previously designed installations, the plug, along with the connector receptacle were accessible after the completion of the installation so that corrections regarding the angular positioning between the plug and the connector receptacle axes as well as major lateral displacements of these axes could be made through proper adjustment. With the increasing demand for compact size and, along therewith, higher power density, equipment designs are frequently found in which the entire equipment such as a rectifier or transformer is placed in an oil-filled vessel. In such cases, the connector receptacle is mounted directly at the high voltage transformer or the like located in the oil tank below the oil level during operation of the equipment. As a result, it is inaccessible from the outside and cannot easily be adjusted. Thus, in installations such as these, proper fitting of a plug and connector receptacle is possible only to a rough degree, if at all, because adjustment can be made only through a relatively small entrance in the oil tank. In addition, a centering element must also be brought through this opening.
Thus, it can be seen that there is a need for a pluggable high-amperage contact which, although positioned within certain tolerances with regard to the center and angular position of the axes of the plug to be plugged into it, is capable of centering the axes of the plug and the axes of the receptacle automatically, when the plug is inserted into the receptacle.